Benghazi Report Is Another Stinging Blow For Hillary

Accountability: Early on, the White House had the country needlessly wondering whether Benghazi was terrorism at all. That is long since settled; now a report from Congress confirms where the blame lies.

From the beginning, President Obama launched a two-front war against those demanding full accountability on the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American personnel.

The first was to deny that it was a pre-conceived al-Qaida operation timed for a key date. If the public swallowed that, it would mean that there was nothing to blame anybody for.

The second front was to ask, in Hillary Clinton's words, "What difference does it make?" as the White House insisted it was making sure it would never happen again.

The House Armed Services Committee report on Benghazi makes it clear that avoidable loss of American life at the hands of Islamists, in a place and situation our personnel should never have been in, makes a lot of difference.

The report, by the way, makes no suggestion that there was any order for U.S. forces in Tripoli to "stand down," a straw man that the left has used to suggest that any and all critiques of the Obama administration on Benghazi are groundless.

It did, however, find that "In assessing military posture in anticipation of the September 11 anniversary, White House officials failed to comprehend or ignored the dramatically deteriorating security situation in Libya." That's consistent with a mind-set that believes the 2012 Obama re-election campaign's propaganda: that since Osama bin Laden is dead, so is al-Qaida.

Stevens and the others were "woefully vulnerable" at the time of the attack, according to the report, because of "no intelligence of a specific 'imminent' threat' " and because the State Department insisted on fewer security personnel in Libya.

If that is not an indictment of the secretary of state at the time, it is hard to accept that if Clinton were elected president the buck would ever stop on her desk on any failure, as it should.

The report also found that the Pentagon "believed nearly from the outset of violence in Benghazi that it was a terrorist attack rather than a protest gone awry," which raises the uncomfortable question of why, at a climactic point in the presidential campaign, Obama and his minions, such as then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, actively propagated the absurd notion that it was a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video by an amateur filmmaker.

Accountability: Early on, the White House had the country needlessly wondering whether Benghazi was terrorism at all. That is long since settled; now a report from Congress confirms where the blame lies.

From the beginning, President Obama launched a two-front war against those demanding full accountability on the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American personnel.

The first was to deny that it was a pre-conceived al-Qaida operation timed for a key date. If the public swallowed that, it would mean that there was nothing to blame anybody for.

The second front was to ask, in Hillary Clinton's words, "What difference does it make?" as the White House insisted it was making sure it would never happen again.

The House Armed Services Committee report on Benghazi makes it clear that avoidable loss of American life at the hands of Islamists, in a place and situation our personnel should never have been in, makes a lot of difference.

The report, by the way, makes no suggestion that there was any order for U.S. forces in Tripoli to "stand down," a straw man that the left has used to suggest that any and all critiques of the Obama administration on Benghazi are groundless.

It did, however, find that "In assessing military posture in anticipation of the September 11 anniversary, White House officials failed to comprehend or ignored the dramatically deteriorating security situation in Libya." That's consistent with a mind-set that believes the 2012 Obama re-election campaign's propaganda: that since Osama bin Laden is dead, so is al-Qaida.

Stevens and the others were "woefully vulnerable" at the time of the attack, according to the report, because of "no intelligence of a specific 'imminent' threat' " and because the State Department insisted on fewer security personnel in Libya.

If that is not an indictment of the secretary of state at the time, it is hard to accept that if Clinton were elected president the buck would ever stop on her desk on any failure, as it should.

The report also found that the Pentagon "believed nearly from the outset of violence in Benghazi that it was a terrorist attack rather than a protest gone awry," which raises the uncomfortable question of why, at a climactic point in the presidential campaign, Obama and his minions, such as then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, actively propagated the absurd notion that it was a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video by an amateur filmmaker.

The additional finding in the report that "the location and readiness posture of U.S. forces" led to a "severely degraded" U.S. military response to the attacks can also be laid at Obama's feet. If he, as commander in chief, gets credit for Navy SEALs eliminating bin Laden, why no direct blame for allowing our forces to be unprepared for the eventuality of trouble where it should have been expected?

The "lack of clarity about how the terrorist action was unfolding" that the committee report noted cannot be sloughed off by the White House as the responsibility of middle managers. This is a president and an administration that, from campaign to governance, has touted managerial ability on the most ambitious objectives of big government. Preparing for sticky situations in Libya — a place Obama made a point of choosing to get America involved in by insisting on deposing Moammar Gadhafi — should have been relatively easy if those claims of administrative proficiency were really true.

This new House committee analysis complements the recent Democratic-majority Senate Intelligence Committee report that concluded that Benghazi was preventable, specifically blaming the Clinton State Department for security lapses.

It should also belie the official State Department whitewash in December that contended ex-Secretary Clinton performed "responsibly and well" on Benghazi.

Benghazi will simply not go away, which is bad news for the Democratic presidential front-runner. This cloud hangs over Clinton's head, accusing her of both incompetence and insensitivity to Americans who serve abroad.

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